Part 16 (2/2)

Sokolovsky paused for an instant, thinking about how quick it would be, so quiet, for most of them a moment's panic and then oblivion. His finger hovering over the key, wondering how killing his entire crew served the best interests of humanity.

The male prisoner and the two Ogrons exploded on to the bridge, waving weapons. 'n.o.body move!'

Everyone stared at them in shock. The navigator at Ops ripped out his flechette thrower.

The deck was suddenly filled with light. For a moment, Sokolovsky thought the prisoners had done something, set off a bomb or a flaresnare.

A moment later, something hit the s.h.i.+p, something so big it was irresistible. Sokolovsky tumbled from his seat as the Victoria Victoria 128 128 lurched. There were shouts and cries, he was sure, but he couldn't hear them over the noise of the light.

'The whole s.h.a.gging fragging crukking planet blew up!'

'Is that a report, Ensign?'

'At this time, sir,' said SensOps, 'I have no further data.'

'All right,' said Sokolovsky. 'Let's get off the floor.'

'Yes, sir.'

Sokolovsky pulled himself to his feet and almost fell over.

'We're adrift,' he said. 'The stabilizers are out.'

'Yes, sir,' said Vincenzi. 'Was this part of the plan?'

Sokolovsky gripped a railing, looking around at his bridge, trying to smooth his white hair with his free hand. Vincenzi sat in his chair, hands on the controls, dark eyes unblinking with concentration. 'The Doran Doran is also adrift. They're not answering my hails, so there's some good news. The is also adrift. They're not answering my hails, so there's some good news. The Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen report that they're still going to attempt to dock. They haven't got much choice, they're falling apart.' report that they're still going to attempt to dock. They haven't got much choice, they're falling apart.'

'What shape are we in?' asked Sokolovsky. Around him, the bridge crew were picking themselves up, trying to get a reaction from their dead stations. He realized that Vincenzi had simply cut off their access, and was running everything from the captain's station.

His crew were staring at him as Vincenzi's troops led them from the bridge. Sokolovsky shook his head, suddenly glad that someone else was in his chair.

'Sir?' called a trooper. Vincenzi looked up. 'What about these ones?'

The soldier had hold of the Doctor's arm. The little man looked relatively undamaged. His yellow-haired friend looked slightly worse off, the Ogrons helping him to his feet while Vincenzi's soldiers kept them covered.

'What destroyed Ca.s.sandra, Doctor?'

'I wish I knew.'

'You must know,' said Sokolovsky. 'One moment you're insisting I let you take a shuttle down there, the next the planet's an expanding cloud of vapour and rubble. It's just possible, you know, that there's a connection.'

129.

'I honestly don't know what happened, Captain.' The Doctor glanced at the screen, where the frigate hung at an awkward angle against a backdrop of glittering fragments. 'I wish I did.'

Vincenzi got up from the captain's chair. After a moment, Sokolovsky realized the man was waiting for him to sit down.

'What was it you were planning to do down there, anyway?'

said Sokolovsky, taking his position.

'Blow up the planet, of course,' said the Doctor. 'And someone's gone and done it first.'

One of Vincenzi's troopers handed Sokolovsky a clipboard as the captain strode towards the meeting room. The Doctor trailed along behind them, scowling and still looking puzzled. The s.h.i.+p still had a noticeable tilt; Sokolovsky steadied himself with a hand against the wall as he walked on, reading. The sooner they got the internal gravity sorted out, the better.

'It's a status report, sir,' said the trooper, unnecessarily. 'The most important problem is that the warp drive is down. It's not the drive itself, but all the control connections that have been damaged. We could start it up, but we'd have no way to tell the thing what to do.'

Sokolovsky could see all of that from the report. But the trooper was just trying to be helpful.

Besides, thought the captain, if he wanted trained staff he could always let someone out of the brig.

The s.h.i.+p lurched as the repair team tried once again to get the stabilizers to work properly. Now the floor was sloping in the other direction. Sokolovsky sighed and went into the meeting room.

There was a podium at the front, neatly arranged rows of chairs, enough to accommodate the entire off-duty crew if necessary. The chairs had been dragged into a circle, as though this was a big friendly community meeting, instead of a what's-going-on, what-the-h.e.l.l-do-we-do-now meeting.

Everyone from the Hopper and the Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen was there, guarded by a couple of Vincenzi's troopers. Cwej and the two Ogrons; an academic and his student, both looking bewildered; an aristocratic-looking woman; and was there, guarded by a couple of Vincenzi's troopers. Cwej and the two Ogrons; an academic and his student, both looking bewildered; an aristocratic-looking woman; and 130.

Sokolovsky turned to look at the Doctor, who had somehow appropriated his clipboard. 'Very nasty, this. If you switched on the warp drive now, the uncontrolled gravitic curve would probably catapult you straight into the nearest ma.s.sive object.'

He looked up. 'Oh,' he said.

A second Doctor was sitting in one of the chairs, gravely eyeing his counterpart. Now everyone was looking back and forth between them. Same man, identical clothes, identical grim expression.

'It's the result of tampering with... what's on Iphigenia,' said the Doctor from the Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen. 'Nonsense like this is probably happening over half the galaxy.'

The Doctor standing next to Sokolovsky nodded. 'One of us is a copy.'

'Which one?' said the aristo.

'Me,' said the Doctor standing next to Sokolovsky.

The Captain realized he'd just taken a step back from the little man. 'What the h.e.l.l is this?' he said.

'Now you begin to see why I said history hung in the balance,'

said the copy Doctor. 'Reality itself is being affected by these events.' He looked at his counterpart. 'At least now I know who destroyed Ca.s.sandra.'

'Just what I would have done,' deadpanned the original Doctor.

Sokolovsky decided to deal with the whole thing later. 'What condition is the Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen in?' in?'

Kidjo stared straight ahead, jaw set. The shorter woman from the shuttle sighed and said, 'It's sc.r.a.p metal. I can't believe we managed to limp back here.'

Sokolovsky leant on the back of a chair, looking down at the Doctor from the Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen. 'When you decided to blow up an entire planet '

'Just a comet,' said the Doctor.

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